Jokes based on today's news.
10 joke formats using the seven basic joke forms you learned in
Lesson Two.

There are problems setting up topical jokes which takes knowing specific skill sets
to do properly.

And their "shelf-life" can range roughly from 1-12 days, unless the joke can
be re-written to last longer.
• When it can, these will often be your best jokes, evolving naturally
out of your timely reaction to current events.
• But compared to the risks of doing
blue material to elicit audible audience responses,
nothing compares to the electricity
of a fine topical joke based on the day's news.

1. Blue material can lose important members of the audience even when the audience
as a whole likes it.
• If those people are the ones who were looking for a clean
comic to play their convention one night for $500-150,000, doing blue material
just cost an open act anywhere from a week's to a year's salary.
• Even if you
are the headliner, the folks booking a comic for a big convention
will hire the opening MC or the Middle Act if they do clean material, and
you do not.

2. Topical Material has just as powerful an effect on audiences as does blue material.
• The
low risks involved in properly setting up topical jokes are far outweighed by
the potential high gains.

1. Topical material: subject is a news item that is less than 12 days old, ideally from today's news.
• If the news item is still on everybody's mind after 12 days or so, you
may be able to keep it in your act as contemporary material.
2. Contemporary Material: subject remains of interest for more than 12 days after first introduced.
• Hopefully, the news item stays relevant for several years so you can
keep it in your act as classical material.
3. Classical Material: true of all people for all time, relevant to all ages.
• As funny today as the day it was written, and first introduced to audiences.
•
Cave men would find it funny.

Evolving your act organically:
Hip, and it makes sense

When material evolves in this natural way, it is organic to your act or speech.
• It will
seem unforced, to come directly out of your character.
• Audiences will love you
for pulling off topical material that is both contemporary and classy!

Bob Hope invented and perfected the team-written monologue with these joke formats
for his radio audiences, a situation in which using blue material was out of
the question.
• This is the same team-writing concept which Johnny Carson used
three-four nights a week from October 1, 1962-May 22, 1992.
• Carson used these
same joke formats in his opening monologue for every episode of "The
Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson."
Jay Leno and David Letterman currently do bastardized versions of the pure Hope-Carson monologue to open their hour-long shows.
Note: every time I teach this lesson, I update the
video examples from current TV host's topical monologues over the past week.

Further advantages for comics and speakers everywhere on planet earth:
1. If these joke formats Jim will teach you are rarely followed by any of these or other comics in the public eye, that means these comedic weapons are wide open for you to exploit in your act.
2. Today, whenever successful jokes are told within these time-tested joke formats, audiences welcome their return.
• And with all the good feeling and comfort of putting on an old-and-trusted
pair of favorite shoes.

Bonus: although this video does not talk much about Carson's use of Topical Joke
Formats,
none-the-less it is of biographical interest:
•you need to know about this guy!New documentation:
The PBS "American Masters" series now features an online
2-hour documentary which debuted May 15, 2012,
and which you can watch
online right here, right now: "Johnny
Carson: King of Late Night"which points out this interesting historical
fact:
"Quite possibly the biggest star that television has ever produced,
Carson commanded,
at his peak, a nightly audience of 15 million viewers – double the current
audience of Leno and Letterman – combined."

Additional Resources:"How to" books
Old jokes you can use
Quotations you can use
Further examples of wit in:
• comedy routines, speeches, funny books and
plays, motion picture classics, etc.
General sources and historical backgrounds:
•political campaigns
won using some of these joke formats, etc.
Newspapers and Magazines focusing on Social Commentary
Other books, etc., I have referred to in the workbook